A GIFT of chocolate candies is a good way to tell someone of your love. Not only are they delicious but medical news says it is good for a healthy heart. Traditionally chocolate has been a part of Filipino breakfast. Although delicious, you have to be careful that the hot chocolate drink does not scald your tongue because of the hot oil. Most Manila families used to have the wooden beater rolled between the palms to churn the chocolate. At present the best chocolate candies come from places that do not grow cacao trees, like Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, and the US Fairly good chocolate candies are now produced locally but not yet comparable to the best. Our "table" may be of the best and properly packaged it is excellent. We still do not produce chocolates like Nestle or Lindt's or See's. Chocolates are made from the residue of pressed cacao seeds. The main product of cacao is the oil which is the main ingredient for lipstick. Since cacao oil is edible it is ideal for lipstick which is ordinarily swallowed in small quantities. There also other pharmaceutical uses of cocoa butter so that the demand for cacao butter is big but mainly supplied by Brazil, Ghana and other West African countries.

Can cacao plantations be done in the Philippines? Yes especially if it is planted under the coconut trees. Philippine Cacao Estates Corporation (PCEC) tried but was only partially successful. The main problem was and is its price. As a commodity, one bean is as good as another; therefore its price is determined by the international market and not the local supply and demand. The present price is $2.700 per ton which is good because production cost is about $2,300 per ton. When PCEC started its cacao plantations the price was $5,400 per ton but later it dropped to $800 a ton. With such extreme price fluctuations together with a dry spell that dried up even the river making the drip irrigation useless plus agrarian reform problems, PCEC went down even after planting over four thousand hectares. PCEC did not buy the coconut lands but contracted to plant cacao under the coconut trees. When the land was subdivided to the new owners because of agrarian reform, the new owners did not want to honor the contracts with the old owners. To maximize land use of coconut plantations cocoa is still an ideal crop.

A few backyard cacao plants is a different matter. They often give enough fruits for breakfast chocolate drinks. It is not necessary to ferment the beans to make it delicious since the oil is still in the beans. In commercial plantations fermenting is needed. Well- fermented beans are more aromatic and delicious. The African fermenting process is done by wrapping the cacao beans in large leaves and exposing them to the sun for a few days. This can take a lot of man-hours. The next problem is drying the beans in the wet season. There are also pests that make it difficult to cultivate cacao. The first is a borer which drills into the fruit. To counter this, they use a variety with fruits that have a hard or thick husk. We have some of these varieties but none of these include the aromatic type popular in the Philippines. The second pest is a tiny bug carried by the wind. If in the early morning this bug lands on a damp leaf, it works its way down the leaf into the branch and clogs the vascular system of the cocoa plant. Accordingly a cacao plantation needs spraying at least every two weeks. This is difficult for the small farmers to do. When the agrarian reform farmers in Davao refused to honor the contracts made by the previous owners of the coconut plantation, the cacao plants slowly died away although some of them have survived. Excellent Camiguin tablea manufacturers source their cacao from Davao.

Industrial processing of cacao residue into chocolate candy has a great potential in the Philippines. The processing is basically the grinding of the chocolate for many hours until a very fine consistency is reached. Then sugar is added. It is question of experimenting and packaging to make first-class chocolate. One such experiment is sweetening the basic tablea with coconut sugar. This can do away with some of the processing. An excellent Philippine chocolate candy can be produced that can compete with Swiss chocolates. <emeterio_barcelon@yahoo.com>